Nuns on the Pill? Researchers Flaunt Their Ignorance

Did you know that the Catholic Church says it’s OK for a doctor to use a knife?

Seriously, it’s okay. A doctor, as long as he is doing it for health reasons and not intentionally hurting the patient, can use a scalpel and actually cut someone open.

Ridiculous? Yes, but it is revelations of this intellectual caliber that are spicing the news pages right now in response to a Lancet journal article that says the contraceptive pill may help childless women to lower the risk of breast cancer. As a result, they are recommending Catholic nuns use the pill.

Yes, authors Kara Britt, from Monash University, and Roger Short, from the University of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia, have come out fighting for the women of the cloth in their article: “The plight of nuns: hazards of nulliparity.”

There are two levels of ignorance on display here.

First there is the doctor and the knife scenario. Of course the doctor can use the knife even though the action of cutting someone open is otherwise a terribly bad thing to do. Likewise the Church teaches a woman can take the pill for health reasons as long as the intention is not for it to be used as a contraceptive, despite the possibility of a contraceptive outcome.

(The Church also teaches that if the pill used by a sexually active woman has the effect of being an abortifacient, then it should definitely not be taken, because there’s obviously a risk of far greater damage. There are different types of pills and individuals should do their research.)

But the second level of ignorance reaches higher and further into the realms of absurdity. Here it is from the horse’s mouth. The UK Daily Mail’s Jenny Hope said: “Regardless of their vows of celibacy – researchers in Australia say nuns should take the Pill.”

I wish Ms Hope would explain how taking the pill to avoide breast cancer can affect someone’s commitment to celibacy. She shows as much understanding of logic here as she does of the word “research.” She says: “Research has shown that women using the Pill are at lower risk of getting any kind of cancer,” which is plain wrong and all it shows is shoddy journalism.

But more on the research findings in a minute.

Ms Hope also says that the researchers “claim the Roman Catholic Church’s own teaching does not prevent the Pill being used for health reasons.” Well a brief skim of Humanae Vitae, the landmark birth control encyclical, tells you that. It is no revelation – it was written almost 50 years ago. That makes it established teaching, not a “claim.”

Then: “Although Humanae Vitae never mentions nuns, they should be free to use the contraceptive Pill to protect against the hazards of nulliparity.” Well, there’s a reason the papal document never mentions nuns. Nuns are totally irrelevant to the issue of contraception.

As for the research, I do not criticize it, but it is worth putting it in context rather than drawing out a tiny element to be splashed over the front page. Health reports and studies carry their fair share of bandwagon-jumpers so let’s look at it calmly.

The authors analyze breast, ovarian and uterine cancers across a fairly decent number of American women. For ovarian and uterine cancers there is actually more of a risk among the controls, not the nuns, for all the age groups up until 70 years of age.

For the great majority of ages, it is actually less likely that nuns die of those cancers. In fact for ovarian cancer, it’s not until the 80+ age group that deaths are more probable among nuns than other women. And in that category, the nuns really do take over – death is almost three times as likely.

So, it is only breast cancer that carries the significant disparity for most age-groups, but once again it’s not until the category of 70+ that the probability really jumps.

The authors responsibly qualify their research with the statement that individual nuns need to consult their doctors, as each person’s own medical history and conditions may dictate quite different diagnoses and recommendations.

And that’s a good point at which to come to back to the Church. The picture painted implicitly in the report and explicitly by ignorant journalists is that nuns are locked away from medical treatment and need permission to access medicine. Britt and Short say: “the Catholic Church could make the oral contraceptive pill freely available to all its nuns,” which shows a complete misunderstanding of human freedom and specifically the freedom of nuns. Pope Benedict keeps the keys to the kingdom, not the medicine cabinet.

News24 has Short saying: “It would be expensive for any nunnery to get the pills, and the Catholic Church should be paying for that.” It might be helpful for Short to consider that the Catholic Church and its convents are not akin to a pound or cattery. While claiming his research is favoring nuns, he does not flatter them with his ignorance of their state in life and personal freedom.

Perhaps Julia Medew of the Sydney Morning Heraldcould help out other health reporters and researchers. She called up the general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Father Brian Lucas, who had this to say: ”The question of whether nuns are prescribed hormonal medication is entirely a matter between the individual nun and her doctor, taking into account her risk factors and personal health needs. It has nothing to do with any church teaching on contraception.”

It’s amazing what sort of common-sense responses you can obtain when you ask for them.

I had to smile, though, when Short told me that co-author Kara Britt will be going to the Vatican on Sunday next week to present their work at the 10th World Congress of The International Association of Maternal and Neonatal Health. I’d love to be a fly on the wall to watch her reaction when the Vatican official tells her: “Good points – I am sure many of them are aware of that and are getting sound medical advice from their doctors who read your articles.”

At least she will have some extra time to visit the beautiful sights of Rome. Or maybe she could take some pills and pay relief visits to those poor nuns locked away from medical treatment by the evil Vatican empire.

Alex Perrottet, an Australian journalist, is contributing editor of Pacific Media Watch at AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre in New Zealand.

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The media’s reaction to this statement of nuns being on the pill shows how most people don’t undstand 1. what the Church really teaches and 2. why she teaches it (natural law) I think that to most people, the Church is pretty random in what she teaches and why. I’ve heard people say “Why does the Church teach that couples have as many children as they can, but then says IVP is wrong? Do they want people to have tons of kids or not?” Most people just don’t get it.

philSFO

In a court of law ignorance is no excuse. In the media, universities, and sadly too many Catholic parishes around the world ignorance seems to be the order of the day. Let us pray that Holy Mother Church may be blessed with an abundance of great teachers and preachers of the faith in the days ahead so that Catholic Truth may ring out from the housetops. Lord hear our prayer.

markymark

Would someone define for me what a “nunnery” is? and why the Catholic Church is obligated to pay for everything it needs?

In a July 29th 2005 press release, the World Health Organization declared that combined estrogen-progestogen Oral Contraceptives are carcinogenic to humans. Specifically, they said that “Use of OC’s increases risk of breast, cervix, and liver cancer.” The data was presented by a working group of 21 scientists from 8 countries convened by the cancer research agency of the WHO, the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Companies that make birth control pills also have admitted a link between the drug and breast cancer. More recently, the journal of the Mayo Clinic (Mayo Clinic Proceedings) published an article entitled “Oral Contraceptive Use as a Risk Factor for Pre-menopausal Breast Cancer: A Meta-analysis.” It revealed that 21 of 23 studies that followed women who took the pill prior to having their first child showed an increased risk of breast cancer. The increase was especially steep among younger women. One of the authors, Chris Kahlenborn, M.D., stated, “Anyone who is prescribing oral contraceptives has a duty to tell women that 21 of 23 studies showed an increased risk.” He added, “As more information comes out, it’s going to be increasingly difficult to suppress [the documented evidence from medical studies]. There’s a growing sense that it’s really just a matter of time before the lid blows on this thing. . . . We will start seeing a new attitude towards the pill, and it will be fueled by lawsuits.”

Why does the Pill increase a woman’s odds of developing breast cancer? Chris Kahlenborn, M.D., explains: “Two of the most important types of hormones that control reproduction are estrogens and progestins. Birth Control Pills are made from synthetic estrogens and/or progestins. Experiments have shown that these hormones cause women’s breast cells to divide more rapidly, which makes them more easily affected by carcinogens – agents which cause cancer” check out A Consumer’s Guide to the Pill and Other Drugs by John B.Wilks, Pharm. M.P.S.